Recipes, some kid friendly stuff

My monkeys eat what we so, but sometimes it's nice for the adults to have a kid's meal too. My monkeys are often included in the planning of our meals, and they come up with some interesting food combo's when they choose the menu (salmon and pizza anyone?) Here are a few kid friendly menu items. :)




Sweet Potato wedges & dip

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 8 sweet potatoes, sliced lengthwise into quarters
• 
  

• 5 tablespoons fat-free sour cream
• 1 teaspoon mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon taco seasoning
• 1/8 teaspoon paprika

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl, mix olive oil and paprika. Add potato sticks, and stir by hand to coat. Place on the prepared baking sheet.
3. Bake 40 minutes in the preheated oven

While the wedges bake, stir the sour cream, mayonnaise, taco seasoning, and paprika together in a small bowl. Serve as a dip for the wedges

I haven't tried this one, but it looks interesting:

Octopus soup

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package hot dogs
• 2 (48 ounce) containers chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cups chopped fresh chives

Directions

1. With a sharp knife, cut the hot dogs in half the short way. Slice each piece in half vertically, cutting about 3/4 of the way up towards the rounded end. Leave about 1 inch of the rounded end as the head of the octopus. Rotate the dog 90 degrees, and make another vertical cut. Cut the 4 legs in half again, to make 8 legs and a head. The hot dogs should look like tassels with rounded heads.
2. Bring the chicken broth and chives to a boil in a soup pot. Place the octopus hot dogs into the boiling soup, and simmer for about 5 minutes. The legs will curl to make the octopus shape. Serve in bowls with an octopus or 2 in each bowl.

Yummy no-bake kids cinnamon rolls

Ingredients

• 2 slices white bread, crusts removed
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar
• 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon water, or as needed

Directions

1. Roll the bread slices until very flat. Butter the bread, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Starting on one side, roll up the bread slice until tight. Repeat with the second bread slice. Cut the bread rolls into 1 inch slices.
2. Mix the confectioners' sugar with the water in a small bowl to make a thin frosting. Drizzle frosting over the bread slices, and serve.

Peanut Butter Fudge

Ingredients

• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups miniature marshmallows

Directions

1. Butter one 9x9 inch pan and set aside.
2. In a 3 quart saucepan, combine white sugar, brown sugar, milk, and butter. Cook to soft ball stage, 234 degrees F (112 degrees C). Remove from heat.
3. Stir in peanut butter, vanilla and marshmallows; continue stirring until marshmallows are melted. Pour into prepared pan and cool. Cut into squares and serve.

Smoothies are always a big hit in our house:

Frozen berries

Yogurt (usually vanilla here)

half a banana 

some OJ if we have it

blend and serve :)

I love Kraftrecipes.com for inspiration

Chicken pot pie

Taco Bowls

Stuffed Frenchtoast

and I think we might try this for tomorrows dinner :)

Pizza fondue

Spring forward!

These past two weeks have been a blur, we have had lots of things happening at the school, and in our homes lives. I was so happy for the weekend to arrive, and for it to bring March Break. Call me Kraze, but I am happy to have my monkeys away from their school for a little bit. It'll be a busy week with a few different things planned, but it should be fun. My sister is off, and my mom has a few days off. 

My oldest monkey got the March Break off to an awesome start with a sweet break away goal in TimBits hockey, lol. :) I wish I had been recording it!

After Hockey, the monkeys, my mom and I went to visit with a new addition to the world, a sweet little baby girl <3 She had quite a few other baby's visiting her, so I managed to get quite a bit of snuggle time between all the baby's there. The monkey's got a bunch of puppy time, with one of their favorite puppies, Gizmo. I can't wait till we can get them a puppy! 

Today has been all about our little family. The oldest Monkey is doing so much better in his reading and writing, and wrote out our grocery list for us. Thankfully it was a short list, and a quick trip to the grocery store. My plan was to come home and plant a few early seeds for fun, the monkeys love to watch things sprout and grow in the little mini green house things. When we got home, they had other plans, and wanted to watch "Monsters VS Aliens". Again. It turned out to be a good thing, as I can't find my seeds. I found the plastic container thing, and the soil, but we need the seeds were not where I thought I put them. I'm going to have to search the basement. 

The monkeys decided to play in their play area, hubby is sleeping, so I figured if I couldn't plant seeds I could at least  plan out my gardens.  My awesome hubby built me a raised garden when we moved in here, and we expected it to only be up for a year, two at the most, and then we would do some more permanent landscaping. That was 4 years ago.  I don't mind, it's a beautiful raised bed, but it is a little too small. We built a deck last year so I'll be able to put some gardens in around the edge of the deck, and I bought a few big planters, but after making my lists I'm still missing room for 4-5 veggies that I would like to grow. Looks like I'm going to have to adjust a few things :S This year we will have Tomatoes, Peppers (red, green, orange AND yellow!), lettuce, spinach, beans, peas, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, and garlic thanks to my fall planning! :)  It's going to be a yummy summer! 

We are currently celebrating the start of daylight savings time by watching a movie and staying up "late". Hey, it only happens once a year ;) Happy Spring Forward day!